William Clarke Quantrill

Can you believe that Quantrill was a schoolteacher in his younger days?
That image of him certainly is not the Quantrill that comes to mind when the word Lawrence, Kansas is brought to the light of day.

The organizer of the most savage fighting unit in the Civil War, William Quantrill used guerrilla warfare to terrorize civilians and soldiers alike. It appears that after teaching school for several years. He traveled to Utah in 1858 and made his living as a gambler, known as Charles Hart. In 1859, he moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where he was again   teaching school in 1859 /60. Nevertheless, his history soon caught up with him he was on the run hunted for murder and horse theft, Quantrill fled to Missouri in1860.

By late 1861, he was the leader of Quantrill's Raiders, a band of renegades of about a dozen men who hassled Union soldiers and sympathizers along the Kansas-Missouri border. Union forces soon declared him a brigand. Confederate officials promoted him to Captain, a striking, patriotic southern hero.

The culmination of Quantrill's guerrilla livelihood culminated on August 21, 1863, when he led some 450 pro-southerners into Lawrence, Kansas, a pro-Union stronghold and home of Senator James H. Lane, who played a primary role in the great effort for keeping Kansas a free-soil state. A public enemy to pro-slavery forces in Missouri. Lane escaped by crawling through a field in his night shirt. Quantrill and his band of cutthroat’s murdered 183 boys and men in front of their families then torched Lawrence.

The massacre led to a hasty reprisal! Union troops forced the residents of four Missouri border counties onto the open prairie while Jayhawkers looted and burned everything they left behind. Quantrill and his raiders took part in the Confederate retaliation for this atrocity, but when Union forces drove the Confederates back, Quantrill fled to Texas. The guerrilla band become several smaller bands, with one lead by inhuman lieutenant, "Bloody Bill" Anderson, well known for wearing a necklace of Yankee scalps into battle.

Quantrill and his followers were folk heroes to their supporters in Missouri. Ex-Raiders, brothers Cole and Jim Younger, and Frank and Jesse James, continued the guerrilla hit and run style to rob and loot both banks and trains. Also becoming folk heroes along with Quantrill. Quantrill was eventually killed on a raid into Kentucky in 1865.

Many Southerners do not believe Quantrill was a brigand they look to him as a patriot to the cause. More to come on that point of view!

Here is a quote from President Harry S. Truman

"But Quantrill and his men were no more bandits than the men on the other side. I've been to reunions of Quantrill's men two or three times. All they were trying to do was protect the property on the Missouri side of the line."

President Harry S. Truman
Member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans